Physical fitness has been a growing concern for both the government as well as the health care industry due to the decline in the time spent on physical activities by both young teens as well as older adults. Self monitoring of individuals has proven to be helpful in increasing awareness of individuals to their activity habits. By way of example, self-monitoring of sugar levels by a diabetic helps the diabetic to modify eating habits leading to a healthier lifestyle.
Self-monitoring and precisely quantizing physical movements has also proven to be important in disease management of patients with chronic diseases, many of which have become highly prevalent in the western world. Athletes also monitor their exercise routines to optimize performance. A plethora of different devices and applications have surfaced to serve the needs of the community ranging from simple pedometers to complex web-based tracking programs.
Wearable devices and sensors have seen a tremendous global growth in a range of applications including monitoring physical movements. While known systems are able, to some extent, to ascertain results of certain movements that an individual is undertaking, these systems are not able to provide detailed information as to whether the movements are being undertaken in a correct manner.
Micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) sensors, which have a small form factor and exhibit low power consumption without compromising on performance, have received increased attention for incorporation into wearable sensors. For example, inertial MEMS sensors such as accelerometers can be placed into an easy and light portable device to be worn by and monitored by users. In this context a user can be a wearer of such a device, a coach who desires to monitor the progress of a player who is wearing such a device, a therapist who is monitoring the healing progression of an injured athlete, etc.
Until recently, it has been challenging for an individual to track, record, and report physical activities. Assessment and feedback concerning physical progress and the correctness of a performed physical activity could only be accurately provided by an observer, e.g., by a coach or by a physical therapist.
Accordingly, there is a need for a smarter system including applications and wearable devices that track, record and report physical exercise of the wearer. A further need exist for a system that is context aware and which allows assessment of correctness of the performed physical exercises and which is capable of providing feedback to a user as to whether the user is correctly engaging in a particular series of movements. It would be beneficial if such a device did not require user intervention during the course of these movements. Therefore, a system which monitored a subject's movements and provided real-time detailed information as to whether the movements are being performed correctly, and also provided feedback related to the movements would be beneficial.